


you spend your life searching for a father and G-d

by whatdoyoumeanitsnotawesome



Series: it could be that G-d hates us [2]
Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: (he tries so hard), Cassidy agrees and will try to give it to her, F/M, Gen, Jesse Custer is a self-absorbed self-righteous prick, Jesse Custer: bad at Feelings, Neglect, Pining, Podfic Welcome, Priscilla-Jean Henrietta O'Hare deserves EVERYTHING, Proinsias Cassidy is a flaming trashbag of a person, Relationship(s), Unrequited Love, and i love him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-13 22:51:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11770065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatdoyoumeanitsnotawesome/pseuds/whatdoyoumeanitsnotawesome
Summary: Tulip has trouble sleeping.





	you spend your life searching for a father and G-d

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kagutsuchi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kagutsuchi/gifts).



> So obviously several days have passed between Sokosha and Pig. We see in the bar in Pig that Tulip has been avoiding sleep for at least several days. This takes place approximately 3 days after Sokosha.

    The first night was rough, her sleep disturbed and uneasy. She kept waking up, not knowing why, or if she’d heard something. So she’d put her head back down and try again.

    The second night was worse. She bolted upright, terrified, heart racing. She knew she needed time to calm down, so she went to go make a cup of tea and keep Cass company in his vigil over Denis. Halfway through the cup she feels her eyes getting heavy so she puts her mug on the coffee table and rests her head on Cassidy’s shoulder.

    “This okay?” she asks, yawning.

    He responds, softly, “Aye, yer alright. Go to sleep.” She manages almost four hours before she’s woken again by Jesse slamming the door, coming in from going around the clubs, but by that time it’s almost light out so she decides to get up for the day.

    The third night she tries to lay down in the bed but gives it up as a bad job after a couple of hours of restless tossing and turning and not even being within spitting distance of sleep. She shuffles out to the kitchen and makes tea for herself and Cass and brings them out to the couch.

    She hands him the mug and sits close enough that she’s all pressed up against him along his left side. “Thanks, Tulip.” She merely hums and sips her drink while staring at the tv. The pale light makes her look if anything even more tired than she is. He can see the puffiness in her face, the small divot of tension between her brows, the glazed cast of her eyes. “Do you mind if I ask what’s keeping you up?”

    She takes another deliberately slow sip before she answers. “I been dreamin’. About what happened.” She picks up his hand and turns it over, back and forth, running the tips of her fingers over the place where his had ended a couple of days ago. “Not even a mark.”

    “Fringe benefit of my ‘medical condition’.” He threads his fingers through hers and squeezes. “All better, like nothin’ ever happened.” He pauses, considering. “What happens in your dream?”

    She stares at their joined hands as she answers. “He’s got me, like in the kitchen. Not on the floor, but like when he Touched me. He’s holding me up off the floor, dead arm straight, by the chin. I struggle, but… It’s like trying to escape a statue. He’s _the_ immovable object. And then I look up and I see your fingers falling from the sky like fries. There’s yellin’ but it sounds… a long way off. Almost like I’m hearing it from underwater. After that I can’t remember, but there’s more.”

    If Cassidy could pick her up and put her in his pocket, close to his heart, and hide her away, protect her, he would. But he knows, better than most, that there’s nothin’ can protect you from your own mind. Instead what he offers is, “I’m sorry. Is there anything you’d like me to do?”

    “Not sure what you can do against dreams, Cass. Just sit with me.”

    “As long as you need, Tulip.” He wraps his arm around her shoulders and tucks her head under his chin. “Anything.”

    She turns into him, bringing her feet up and tucking them between his thighs and under the one furthest from her. He presses a kiss into the messy crown of her hair as she shuts her eyes and sighs.

    He wracks his brain for a song that’s not about whoring or battlin’ the English before settling on [ Carrickfergus.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78PCYfB50SI) It’s old and soft and sad, but it’s not bloody or rude. He sings for hours, way past the point where his voice goes hoarse, until he’s basically just whispering lyrics into her hair. But she dozes in fits and starts, occasionally wiggling to get more comfortable or warm her hands up. He watches for signs that she’s upset or distressed and strategically holds her tighter to him or sings a little louder or squeezes her ankles.

    Jesse stumbles in at five-bloody-thirty in the morning, when the sun is fully up and the dawn chorus is really picking up speed. He slams the goddamn door again, like he does every morning, and Tulip’s face scrunches up in discontent. Cass soothes her back into sleep, making shushing noises and giving her a quick squeeze just as Jesse walks in. Jess perches on the edge of the coffee table and studies Tulip’s face.

    “She have nightmares again?”

    “Off and on all night. She just nodded off about an hour ago.”

    “I wish I could help her.”

    What he wants to say is _you’d actually have to be here and pay attention to her to help her you massive steaming bloody ungrateful shite_ , but what he actually says is, “You're busy lookin’ fer God. And she's good company while I'm watching over Denis. ‘sides, she's too tired to go anywhere, poor girl.”

    “Yeah, she's exhausted.” Jesse reaches forward, and Tulip frowns as he cups her face. “C’mon, let's get to bed.”

    Cass shakes his head and tightens the arm he's got wrapped around her shoulders. “Leave ‘er be, she's fine. She only settled down a little bit ago. If you wake her now she won't be able to go back to sleep again.”

    “Are you sure? I could just carry her.” Jesse is already standing up, stretching his arms above his head and pulling his shirttails out of his jeans, exposing a tiny strip of skin between the bottom of his shirt and the tops of his briefs.

    “Positive. I’m not going anywhere for quite a while anyway. I’ll keep her safe. Just hand me that blanket from the other sofa. I don't make a lot of heat, me.” He gestures vaguely at the other side of the room.

    Jesse nods, “I’m beat. Night, Cass,” and sort of half-heartedly tosses the blanket at Cassidy as he goes by. It’s pure luck that it lands where he can grab it with his toes and pull it up where he can snag it properly and settle it around Tulip and himself without disturbing her.

    As Jesse leaves Tulip’s face relaxes once more, and she settles more fully into sleep and into Cassidy as he tucks the blanket around her. Without meaning to she’d worked her way under his skin and into his heart, creating a permanent place where he would treasure her forever. He brushed her hair back away from her face, and is overwhelmed once again by the strength of his feelings for her. He presses the softest of kisses to her forehead, pouring all his love and desire for her to be happy and safe into it.

    Any fool could she was hung up on Jesse Custer in a forever sorta way, and Jess _was_ his best mate, but he wished with all his might that Jesse would treat her better. Tulip deserved everything, and from where he stood (in his admittedly biased opinion,) Jesse wasn’t measuring up. In fact it seemed a lot like Jesse was hurting her with his distance and  impatience. She kept leaving an empty bed and coming to find him and getting Cass instead, poor substitute that he was. She wasn’t the sort of woman to be uncomfortable in her own company, not like Cass himself was. So for her to keep coming to him when it was another she wanted, well that spoke volumes, dinnit?

    Her dreams were bad enough that she was reluctant to sleep on her own. And that day with the Saint after she came back from the kitchen she'd been shaken down to her core. Whatever the Saint had done to her went deeper than she was letting on. She was _scared_. When he’d rushed in and grabbed that maniac’s blade she'd been on the floor, eyes huge, face ashen, and frozen like a doe caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. The Tulip he knew would _fight_. She'd scratch and kick and bite and scream and do absolutely anything to _keep_ fighting another day. But the Tulip on the floor hadn't even raised her hands in front of her...

    ...because Jesse was late. Not by a lot, but enough for the Saint to start killing his best bargaining chips. And even though Jess _had_ got there in the nick of time Cass had been the one to rush in where angels feared to tread. _He'd_ gotten there first; _he’d_ saved her. _That_ was why she kept finding him. He'd saved her and she knew he'd do it again and again and again. She came to him to feel safe, because she didn't feel safe on her own.

    His heart broke for her. Her whole life she had counted on Jesse, and that day he let her down. And instead of staying in and being with her Jesse was fucking off every night to the bars and clubs of New Orleans in an increasingly futile search for God, or failing that news about the Wankers in White.

    He really did love Jesse, but they were gonna have to have Words sooner or later. They needed him, both of them. They needed him to be a friend and a support each in their own way. Jess seemed intent on fucking it all up though. He hadn't even _asked_ about Denis when he'd come back after dealing with the Saint; he'd just stomped straight over to the shower and spent two hours in there and then demanded that they leave him alone and went and passed out by himself. Hell’s bells, he hadn't even told them about what actually  happened. He just got up the next day and acted like nothing had changed. And the way he was ignoring Tulip made Cassidy’s blood boil.

    He must’ve been getting worked up because Tulip started making unhappy little noises. He forces himself to breathe deeply and slowly and relax. He rifles through his mental jukebox once again and arrived at [ Morning Has Broken ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZAsfB1Np-8) by Cat Stevens. It was a pretty tune, guaranteed to keep the peace. He has a plan. 1) Be There for Tulip. 2) Have Words with Jesse. (Make sure he understands what's going on with her.) 3) Take Steps so Jesse is around to be with Tulip, even if it kills you.

    With that in mind, Cassidy settles himself in for another long watch over the people he loves the most.

**Author's Note:**

> Carrickfergus - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78PCYfB50SI)  
> Morning has Broken - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZAsfB1Np-8)


End file.
